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Passion and pride are the missing ingredients

Michael McNamara

"The upshot of burgeoning generic brands is that Australian farmers are cut out of the retail picture". Photo: Glen Hunt

Who might you think was judged to be Australia's most successful exhibitor at the highly prestigious Sydney Royal Cheese and Dairy Show, announced on Friday?

A cheesemaker perhaps? A dairy farmer, or an artisan butter churner? It breaks my heart to tell you, but Aldi's generic brands creamed off the prizes, winning eight individual gold medals and a whopping 41 silvers, including champion butter.

This extraordinary result is bound to intensify the deepening battle between dairy farmers and big retailers, and it serves as a worrying sign for the agricultural sector more broadly.

The result is all the more galling given the stated aims of the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW: ''To ensure that rural communities and agricultural industries [nationwide] continue to thrive.''

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Sadly, dairy farmers and farmers generally feel profoundly betrayed by this old, respected and vital institution. An association that has been relied on for generations to watch farmers' backs has facilitated this striking blow for small agricultural producers in their cheese and dairy show.

Already, producers' brands are disappearing off the supermarket shelves at an alarming rate. The market research company IBISWorld estimates that a third of all the products on supermarket shelves will be so-called home brands by 2016.

At first glance it may seem odd that the rise of generic brands is occurring at the same time as the big retailers are cornering an ever bigger market share. Presumably, greater volumes come with an stronger capacity to offer more product choice, not less.

The inexorable rise of generic labels is a perfect example of how concentrated market power distorts what might otherwise happen when the market works openly and effectively. It is hardly surprising, then, that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched an investigation into whether Coles and Woolworths are improperly driving down the prices paid to suppliers.

The upshot of burgeoning generic brands is that Australian farmers are cut out of the retail picture. A world devoid of brands inevitably puts price first and quality last.

A notion that saddens me deeply is that the removal of differentiation in foods by the big retailers may well be a deliberate long-term strategy to commoditise produce and force the primacy of price, with milk and dairy produce at the front line.

The consumers' advice magazine Choice says that only 38 per cent of Woolworths' and 55 per cent of Coles' generic products are Australian made, compared with 92 per cent of independent non-generic brands.

But it's not just brands that suffer when price becomes everything and farmers are reduced to a simple link in the supply chain. We become a society that interprets food as good quality when it appears faultless, rather than when it is flavoursome.

To draw an analogy, a high-resolution digital photograph can be a perfect representation of a subject in every way but it still would not be accepted, let alone preferred, by the Archibald Prize's judges. Why, then, should Aldi's Westacre Manhattan apricot and almond cream cheese be equally as worthy of a silver medal as the fantastically delicious, farm produced, handmade, biodynamic Holy Goat La Luna ring, regarded by many as Australia's premier cheese?

Perhaps consumers don't value questions like, where does this food come from? How was it made? Does this food have integrity. Is it delicious?

If food's sole purposes are to satisfy hunger and shareholders' returns, we could be less passionate about this. The reality is that the production, preparation and consumption of food is a common element that binds societies right around the world and contributes most strongly to cultural identities, not to mention economic sustenance for rural communities.

Perhaps the decision to award Aldi the lion's share of produce medals for dairy this year is simply a fitting acknowledgement of a seismic shift in how we consider the supermarkets: not solely as dispensers of perfect, cheap food, but as repositories of significant aspects of our cultural identity.

Michael McNamara is an artisan cheesemaker in Robertson (Pecora Dairy) and treasurer of the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers' Association.